Sam Farr: “Thank you for that kind yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise for a good ``half a bill.'' This deals with NOAA, also known as…”

“Thank you for that kind yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise for a good ``half a bill.'' This deals with NOAA, also known as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But this bill drops the ``O'' for oceanic and becomes a NAA bill. That is because the Resources Committee that has jurisdiction over oceans failed to deal with this bill. It has failed to deal with the President's Commission on Oceans, has failed to address any of this in the last years and has failed to address the need for oceans in this bill. So the Science Committee had no choice but to bring you the NAA bill. I am going to vote ``yea'' on NAA because it has a good bipartisan leadership, and it comes from a Science Committee that understands that the Planet Earth needs oceans in order to create weather, and this bill on oceans becomes unadminsterable. Thank goodness for bipartisan, bicameral legislation, because this bill will not see the light of day without oceans having a great part of it. The other side is that with NOAA, the problems that we see here in Congress, are created in the oceans, fisheries and so on, and we have not been funding the ocean side of it. There is international law of the sea, there are international oceans, years, there are all kinds of commissions and groups supporting oceans, yet Congress fails to address it. I commend the bipartisan leadership of getting NOAA in an organic act, but I wish they would include the oceans”